By Lindsay Sturman

The epic battle over how to improve public education in California grew more stratified last week when a bill to mildly reform California’s onerous teacher employment laws was gutted beyond recognition and quickly died. With it went the hope that our elected officials would finally decide the question which is at the heart of the debate: Is there a fair way to fire a teacher? 

Assembly member Susan Bonilla’s AB 934 was meant to address (and head off) the issues raised in Vergara v. California, a lawsuit brought by nine students who argued the laws are too protective. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge agreed; an appeals court did not. Now the state Supreme Court is expected to decide this summer whether to take up the case. While both sides agree there are ineffective teachers in our public schools, and they are concentrated in low-income communities, they can’t agree on what to do about it. Unions say there is no objective way to evaluate teachers, arguing principals can be biased and incompetent, and test scores are influenced by factors outside of a teacher’s control (such as poverty). The default system is that teachers get almost no scrutiny, and terrible teachers are left in the classroom indefinitely because no one is identifying the bad ones.

No one, that is, except for parents.

When a teacher is mean, lazy, chronically drunk in class or “grossly ineffective,” the parents know immediately. They know from their friends, from their kids or simply from observing a class. What has been overlooked by all parties in the debate is that in the absence of workable teacher dismissal laws there is an outsize role parents play in what happens to truly bad teachers. In affluent and high-performing schools, PTA parents — with booster club money, political clout and enough free time — will march into the principal’s office, file petitions with the district and protest until someone does something about a poorly performing teacher. That something is coaching (or nudging) the teacher to improve, and if that doesn’t work, “coaching them out.”

The phenomenon of “coaching out” is when administrators are forced to work around the stringent dismissal process, which can take a decade and cost $250,000, and convince incompetent teachers to leave on their own. Teachers only agree to this when there is another job waiting for them. That job is very often in a low-income, low-performing school, where turnover and vacancies occur more frequently. This shuffle of teachers is known as the “Dance of the Lemons” and was part of the testimony in the Vergara trial.

But the parent part of the equation went unnoticed amid bigger headlines (such as teachers calling students racial epithets and slurs such as “whore” and no one doing anything about it, and that students can lose nine to 12 months of learning from one year with a grossly ineffective teacher). Mark Douglas, assistant superintendent of personnel services at the Fullerton School District, referenced the role of parents. He said the Dance of the Lemons results in the transfer of less effective teachers to economically disadvantaged schools because an “(ineffective) teacher can exist without parent pressure at a lower-end school.”

In other words, bad teachers cannot survive in affluent and high-performing schools because they can’t survive the parents. Empowered parents will hold everyone’s feet to the fire until a poorly performing teacher gets support, improves or moves on. If parents are constantly pressuring a school to stay on its toes and strive for excellence, is it such a surprise when affluent students do well? It’s important to note that parents in low-income and low-performing schools do protest and fight to get rid of ineffective teachers, but their voices go unheard in the same way voices from low-income communities across the country go unheard. Just look at Flint, Mich.

Unions have won protection for teachers from unfair administrators (by insulating them from all administrators), but they can’t protect every bad teacher from every angry parent fighting to protect their kids. When problem teachers do move jobs, it isn’t a “dance,” which conjures up the image of ineffective teachers bouncing from school to school in neighborhoods across a city, rich and poor and middle class — Pasadena to Venice to downtown, Studio City to Brentwood. The evidence shows it’s a settling, with the least effective teachers moving to lower performing and more economically disadvantaged schools.

The story of a teacher at Walgrove Elementary that parents accused of reeking of alcohol on the job provides a recent example. Activist parents in an affluent part of Mar Vista reported that along with smelling alcohol on him at school, the teacher was verbally abusive to kids, made students cry and helped them cheat on the state standardized test. Parents spent months speaking up — to the principal, the superintendent, the district and the board of education — even threatening a school boycott. He finally left, only to move to a low-income school in a historically black neighborhood in South LA.

The system we have inadvertently sends the weakest teachers to the lowest performing schools that disproportionately serve low-income students, students of color and English language learners, compounding the very real challenges of racism and poverty. And if this weren’t bad enough, the lemons drive out the good teachers who can’t stand the dysfunction. This was testified to in Vergara by Maggie Pulley, a Stanford alum who taught in South LA but left her job because she couldn’t stand the “screamer” next door who was causing trauma and stress disorders to the kids she would inherit the following year.

Both sides of the debate agree that poverty can impact a child’s ability to learn, and test scores are highly correlated with family income. Which leads to the assumption that the cause of low test scores is poverty. But correlation is not causation. What if the correlation is related to the phenomenon of active and empowered parents pushing the worst teachers out of high-performing schools, who are then placed in low-performing and low-income schools, coupled with a system that can’t fire a teacher? What if “drop-out factories” are where lemons settle and push out the good apples, creating a vicious cycle? What if this quiet shuffling is exacerbating the “Scarsdale to Harlem” achievement gap? We need to ask the question: Would all children succeed if given excellent teachers?

We need to fix poverty. We need to support teachers with comprehensive professional development so they can improve and excel. We need all schools to value collaboration, a nurturing school culture, the arts and the whole child along with achievement. We need to give low-income communities an equal voice. And we can’t just “fire our way” to successful schools. But we have to admit that the status quo is harming our most vulnerable students. Rather than hyper-focusing on the question, Is there a fair way to fire a bad teacher, we should be asking: If rich parents won’t tolerate a lemon, why should poor kids have to?

 Lindsay Sturman was part of the founding team of six parent-initiated charter schools in Los Angeles with the mission to provide a progressive education to a socio-economically and racially diverse community of students.

Middle school science teacher Tunji Adebayo was honored by Teach For America at Monday night’s benefit.

Science lessons set to rap music. Aspirations in envelopes pinned to the ceiling. And a commitment to live alongside students.

Tunji Adebayo, who teaches 7th and 8th grade science at Lou Dantzler Preparatory Charter Middle School, was honored Monday night for his innovation and dedication at Teach For America’s “Celebrating Changemakers in Education.”

“Tunji’s dedication to his students is limitless, especially to young black males,” Lida Jennings, executive director of TFA LA, told the 350 guests at the Petersen Automotive Museum gathered for the group’s third annual benefit dinner.

Adebayo, 25, who was born in Nigeria one month before TFA was launched, is in his third year of a profession he hadn’t planned on. A TFA representative reached out to him while he was studying dietetics and nutrition science at the University of Georgia, and he’s never looked back.

“I’m staying in education no matter what,” he told LA School Report before receiving his award Monday night.

After his first year teaching and commuting into South LA from Long Beach, Adebayo moved to the neighborhood, around 51st and Vermont. For him, “It’s essential to live in the community,” he said.

He often sees his students in the area, particularly on weekends when he is at the farmers market, which is near a mall with a movie theater.

“It’s a blessing to live and understand some of their struggles on a daily basis. It makes it more real, to become a part of the community.”

The middle school, one of 12 operated by the Inner City Education Foundation, serves 264 students in grades 6-8, and 74 percent are African Americans, compared to 8.4 percent in LA Unified. The school’s student population identified as socioeconomically disadvantaged stands at 77 percent, the same percentage as LA Unified students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals. And 13 percent have disabilities.

His commitment to helping other African Americans started in college, where he noticed that other “young black males didn’t accomplish what I did because the expectations and support weren’t there.”

His parents, who both have masters degrees, brought him to the United States at age 5 and always stressed education.

“It’s not that Nigeria doesn’t have great schools, but a college degree from the U.S. has respect,” said Adebayo, the youngest of nine who grew up inspired by motivational speakers. “I was expected to achieve greatness, so that’s what I did.” The other young men he saw, “They weren’t pushed.”

Pushing for greatness is part of his mission as he teaches biology, chemistry and physics at the charter school to about 35 kids at a time using a blended learning model. He has his students set goals monthly, holds “Motivational Mondays,” goes over assignment grades as a class and notes when students have gone the extra mile.

“I let them know I appreciate them when they go out of their way” in their work. The key is love, and caring. “Most are deprived at home.”

But when he knows they can do more, he calls them on it. A notation he uses to challenge students is “DCE,” for “didn’t care enough” to get an assignment done on time. “My students can make up everything,” he said. “I want them to have a work ethic. If you work hard enough, be creative enough, you can aspire” to greatness.

Another motivation are the lyrics he sets to popular songs and records for his students. He calls them “lyrical dissections.” The lyrics include science definitions and lesson content. “They ask, what does this mean, and it clicks in their minds” when it’s set to music.

At first he wrote all the lyrics, but now, “I write the hook but make them write the verse.” It’s an alternative assignment; other students might choose drawing or making something. “Do whatever you can to make them engaged.”

• Listen to Tunji Adebayo’s science-driven rap lyrics, including “Who Do You Love” and “Get Your Force Up.”

Some of his students don’t have computers at home, so he makes his classroom and technology available to students before and after school and during lunch.

“But I don’t baby them, because in high school no one cares about your excuse, they care about results.”

Pinned to the ceiling in his classroom are envelopes, Jennings said, containing the students’ goals. “They only need to look up to see their visions and ambitions,” she said.

“Tunji has a lot of tricks up his sleeves,” she added, describing how he once “gave himself a time out, and the class respectfully waited for him to collect himself and get back on track.”

“I never would have been a teacher without Teach For America,” Adebayo said.

What makes him stick with it? “Prayer,” he said. “God told me I have a lot more to learn and give. So here I am because I am still learning and still giving.”

His advice to new teachers: “Be creative. There’s always a way.”

Other “Changemakers” honored at the event included LA Unified school board president Steve Zimmer, who joined TFA in 1992 working as an ESL teacher at Marshall High School in Silver Lake. Jennings said she has met monthly with Zimmer in her three years as executive director. She said they don’t always agree, but “Steve has welcomed me into this community.”

The leadership team of KIPP Raíces Academy, which last year was the only LA Unified school to win a National Blue Ribbon award, received the “School Changemakers” awards: founding principal Amber Young Medina, principal Chelsea Zegarski and assistant principal Yesenia Castro.

Alissa Changala, who teaches at USC Hybrid High, received a “Classroom Changemaker” award alongside Adebayo, and Karen Heilman, TFA LA’s advisory board chair, received the top honor of the night, the “Regional Changemaker” award.

Principal Aresa Allen-Rochester, Superintendent Michelle King and George McKenna at a January visit to Windsor Hills Elementary Math/Science Aerospace Magnet.

George McKenna is going into his 55th year as an educator, and he has a lot to say about it.

In fact, he declares: “Give me a school that’s supposedly poor-performing for three years and I guarantee you no charter school would be able to snatch any kids from that school, and no kids will want to leave that school. Now, I’m not bragging, but I can do it.”

Of course, he adds, “I’d have to have the flexibility to be able to do what charter schools do and be able to get the right teachers in there, but it can be done.”

McKenna, who started teaching math at LA Unified in 1962 and now sits on the school board of the second-largest district in the country, said he has some common-sense ideas for making schools better. His style is peppered with homespun anecdotes and folksy humor, sometimes referred to as McKenna-isms, but they also offer solid solutions.

McKenna remains critical of some structures of the institution that he now is a leader of, and he is skeptical of Common Core and and various district policies. He has succeeded in implementing some solutions, and he has failed at others. But at 75, he is still trying.

“You have to figure out what will make the students interested in coming to school,” McKenna said in an interview with LA School Report. “Why did kids like to come to my trigonometry class? I had jokes, and I try to show them the practical side to what they’re learning. I would have them figure out the height of a fence that they would have to jump if a dog was chasing them over it, things like that. I keep them entertained.”

Not all of his ideas succeeded. He wrote a bill for the California legislature to consider that would permit parents to take time off from work to visit schools and sit in classrooms. The measure didn’t get out of committees, but he still thinks it’s an important idea.

George McKenna talks with a parent.

INVOLVING THE PARENTS

“Parental involvement is one of the most important elements to a successful school,” McKenna said. He disagrees with the use of automated robo-calls or sending home flyers because parents rarely respond to them. Teachers need to call the homes of their students if they’re not coming to school, and if necessary the principal needs to make those calls too. “Parent involvement is crucial, and I believe if you have somebody sitting in the back of every classroom, smiling, education would improve 500 percent. That’s why I asked the business community to release parents to their schools for two hours a month to do that.”

When he took over a failing high school and turned it into Washington Preparatory High School, he had parents sign contracts with students and teachers that outlined specific goals and expectations. He implemented a dress code, cleaned up the graffiti and gang tagging and created an air of respect for each other and among the staff. That’s the model that became the subject of a movie, “The George McKenna Story” in which he is played by Denzel Washington.

Mandating homework was a challenge for both the teachers and the students, but it helped them create a structure. McKenna said he wanted to nationalize homework throughout the U.S. “That way no parent would ever have to ask, ‘It’s Monday night, do you have any homework?’ because Monday will be national Math Homework Day and maybe the TV stations will have instructional shows that night.”

SHARING WITH CHARTERS

One of the things McKenna said needs changing in the system is to share practices that work and are replicable. He said that would solve a lot of the problems between charter and traditional schools.

“We have more charter schools in my little pocket of District 1 than any other in the whole state. There’s a big concentration. It does keep traditional schools under-enrolled, and I wished that weren’t the case.”

Great Public Schools Now, a plan partly funded by the Broad Foundation to increase the number of high-performing schools in the district including through charters, is not as threatening to him as it is to others in the district. McKenna’s district, just south of downtown Los Angeles, is predominantly lower-income and mostly black and Latino. McKenna said, “I’m not worried about charter schools, it depends on your lens, it’s an alternative. We are all public schools, but we should ask ourselves why children want to go to charter schools, what are they seeking? We should encourage all to do better.”

He added, “Some charter schools take advantage of exclusivity and they go look for better students and they fill up and say they don’t have any more room. Then they have better test scores. Sometimes it’s separatism and classism that works for them.

“The educational system must be education for all, not a few. Not for some in the Silicon Valley, but not for the ones in Napa Valley picking crops. That is ridiculous.”

TEACHING THE TEACHERS

Teachers sit together in the lunchroom, ride in carpools and have their own cliques, but McKenna pointed out, “They have never been in each other’s classrooms to watch how they teach. It doesn’t matter if it’s a different subject, but it helps to see how teachers handle classroom management and see how good practices work first-hand.”

Allan Kakassy with his McKenna archives.

At Washington High School, teacher Allan Kakassy was skeptical at first of McKenna’s plans for the teachers. Once the union representative among the teachers, Kakassy said he heard many complaints from teachers who were concerned about extra work that McKenna required of them, including calling parents at home for students who needed more help, working extra hours or weekends to help with tutoring and turning in lessons plans for the next week every Friday afternoon. Kakassy, who was depicted in the movie about McKenna, became one of McKenna’s leading supporters. Now retired and living in the San Fernando Valley, Kakassy keeps a few boxes full of newspaper clippings, photos, videos and other memorabilia of McKenna’s heyday of teaching, and he still serves on committees in an advisory capacity.

“There were some teachers who were resistant to what McKenna was doing, but others saw positive changes,” he said. Within five years, only 20 of the 140 teachers at the school when McKenna took over were still there. The rest had either transferred or resigned.

McKenna said that it’s important to change the mindset of teachers who may blame the students, or the neighborhoods where they live. “There’s nothing wrong with the kids, we should go with that premise,” McKenna said.

“First you have to identify the problems,” McKenna explained. “If you don’t mind that the carpet is red, then there’s no problem. So if you don’t think it’s a problem that a lot of your students are truant and not coming to school, then there’s nothing to be solved there. That’s a problem.”

He added, “There’s nothing wrong with the kids. There is something wrong with the people who work in the school.”

QUESTIONING COMMON CORE

“A lot of training for teachers now involves Common Core, and that’s a methodology and shouldn’t be handicapping teaching,” McKenna said. “The outcome should have more flexibility.”

One of the problems McKenna sees with Common Core Standards is that the process eliminates some rote memorization. As a former math teacher, he said it is important to memorize the multiplication tables, for example, and that’s what gets you to algebra. “It’s a mystery to me why that is no longer driven into kids and they don’t know their multiplication tables anymore,” McKenna said. “And there are ways to make math fun.”

He doesn’t believe in the district’s policy of moving students from one level to the next when they aren’t sufficient in basic reading or math levels. “Maybe he’s a slow learner, maybe we are not effective teachers, but we shouldn’t be passing them up the line without doing a better job. We shouldn’t have ninth-graders with the skill sets of third- or fourth-graders. Can’t we keep them another year?”

McKenna with Steve Zimmer and other board members in December when the district closed the schools due to threats.

TEACHING SOCIAL JUSTICE

Another important part of McKenna’s ideal school includes the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus. He started social justice programs at Washington and that led to a drop in absenteeism to less than 10 percent because students knew it had become safer to attend classes.

“Anything that leads to helplessness and hopelessness also leads to violent behavior,” McKenna said. “And we’re all in it together.”

He added, “Honor students have an obligation to help their friends, their home boys to do better in school. They think they’re supposed to break dance and spin on their heads, but that’s only because we don’t have anything else to offer them. They need to all get high school diplomas.”

McKenna disagrees with the principals who seem like tough guys and walk the school hallways with a bat. “I’m 145 pounds and will not kick anybody’s butt, I’m not a bully,” he said. “Why not give them confidence and embarrass them with recognition when they do something good and read off their names on the intercom when it’s their birthday?”

He also sees value in including police and probation officers on campus. He had a police officer teach a class and work as an assistant football coach at Washington.

“Encourage a positive police presence on campus, that stops negative thoughts about it,” McKenna said. “It shows they are real human beings who will come to their dances, teach in the classrooms and maybe play basketball on occasion.”

McKenna is sworn in by Congresswoman Karen Bass.

SUPPORTING TEACHERS

“You don’t need doctors till you’re sick, you don’t need lawyers until you are in trouble, but you need teachers all the time,” McKenna said. He is supportive of professional development training, but he adds, “I do not believe in staff development of rotten teachers, I have no use for that.”

McKenna created the Zero Drop-Out resolution last year to eliminate students leaving high school.

“There’s now a commitment to let no child escape,” McKenna said. “If we can get to the point where we get no drop-outs, then that’s a success, and that’s different than 100 percent graduation.”

He also said he wants students to have the idea of going to college instilled at an early age, from first grade. “It should not be if you go to college, but where you’re going to college,” McKenna said.

He doesn’t believe that teachers shouldn’t hug or give a child an encouraging pat when they’ve done something good or need a hug. “Sure, I understand that there are strange people, but we’ve developed a system where we can’t touch a child, even if they need a hug, and that’s wrong,” McKenna said.

A final word of advice to principals and teachers: “Never initiate anything you can’t monitor. You must be able to monitor everything you try to do.”

McKenna said there’s a long way to go. “Public schools are the most powerful institution in America, they’re more powerful than Wall Street, more powerful than banks, more powerful than politics. It’s because it is one institution that requires by law that our children participate in it for 12 years. Children can’t drive, can’t drink, can’t vote, can’t have sex, can’t be out too late on street at nights, but they have to go to school otherwise they break the law, and the parents break the law. Some still don’t attend, and that’s truancy, and we want to correct that.”

He added, “We should know why they’re not there — and figure out ways of making them want to come back.”

Today’s education reformers believe that schools are broken and that business can supply the remedy. Some place their faith in the idea of competition. Others embrace disruptive innovation, mainly through online learning. Both camps share the belief that the solution resides in the impersonal, whether it’s the invisible hand of the market or the transformative power of technology.

Neither strategy has lived up to its hype, and with good reason. It’s impossible to improve education by doing an end run around inherently complicated and messy human relationships. All youngsters need to believe that they have a stake in the future, a goal worth striving for, if they’re going to make it in school. They need a champion, someone who believes in them, and that’s where teachers enter the picture. The most effective approaches foster bonds of caring between teachers and their students.

Read the full story here